


Whatever Floats Your Boat

by Jeffwriter



Series: Sterek Castle series [2]
Category: Castle, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Detective Derek Hale, F/M, M/M, Murder Mystery, Writer Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:06:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4233300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeffwriter/pseuds/Jeffwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is found floating in a dinghy on the Beacon Hills River. He think he's just had a bender until he learns differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles Stilinski awakes with a hangover. It’s a bad one. He can taste it in his mouth in those moments where he can focus long enough to try. His head is so foggy that he can’t remember what he was doing to get in this shape.

He must have been with Scott. Scotty was the only one he did this with. Yet, if he remembered correctly, Scotty was on his honeymoon right now. They’d left last week for Hawaii. So what had caused him to get this way?

He’s face down on some surface that he doesn’t recognize. It’s wood, old boards that have seen too much rain and too many elements for too many years. Stiles lifts his head. He’s in a boat, what appears to be an old wood dinghy. The paint has long worn away, and Stiles is momentarily grateful that it has no holes. There are no oars, so he can’t direct the boat in any way. He’s just riding the river wherever it is going to take him. He looks around, puzzled at how he got here. Stiles definitely remembers being on dry land last night – or so he thinks.

And of course, his brain puts together that a boat goes in water. He starts looking at the landmarks floating by. He sees a boathouse that looks familiar and then a few buildings from Beacon Hills. He realizes that he has to be on Beacon Hills River. This is getting weirder by the minute. He’s never been boating on the river. It’s a slow moving stream that barely covers the sandbars, especially now that there’s a water shortage.

Of course, in the dinghy, there’s much less to get caught on the sand, and Stiles continues to float downstream. He sees some fisherman and begins to wave and shout at them. “Help me. I don’t have any paddles.”

One of the older fishermen laughs. “You could just step out.”

 

 

Stiles ends up at Beacon Hill Memorial. The fisherman had called 911 after taking a look at Stiles’ sunbaked face and hands. Stiles strongly suspects that the man thought he was drunk. He wishes that he had that easy out. He doesn’t remember what happened or how he got in the boat. It must have been a hell of a party, he thinks.

Melissa had practically greeted him at the door. “Oh my God, oh my God,” she cries, and she was literally crying. Stiles wonders what is going on. She’s seen his pale skin sunburnt before, and she never acted like this. She was a nurse; she’d seen far worse.

“I’ve called your father. He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

Stiles just nods, wondering why the world has suddenly gone off course. Nothing is making sense at this point.

Jordan Parrish is standing in the hall outside of Stiles’ room at the hospital as soon as they stick him with an IV to rehydrate him. The sheriff’s face, which is usually lit up with ways to get nasty with Stiles, is drawn. His eyes are dark, sad. Stiles puts it down to having to come out on a call like this.

“How are you feeling?” Parrish asks. “Melissa says that there are no broken bones or fractures. That’s good, I guess.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I know I’m not pretty when I’m drunk, but I’ve never seriously injured myself under the influence. Besides, writers are supposed to get drunk and do stupid things. It’s in the job description.”

Parrish’s eyes narrow until they are slits. “You think you were drunk?” he asks.

Stiles nods. “I don’t do drugs, prescription or illegal. So I’m sure it was booze.”

“And you think that you just were drunk for that whole time?”

Stiles shrugs, which hurts a bit. He wonders when he got so burnt. He doesn’t remember being out in the sun yesterday. “I’m not proud of it but everyone deserves a night out from time to time. I’ve seen you have yours, too.” Stiles gives the sheriff a grin.

Parrish takes a deep breath. “I need to go talk to the doctors. I’ll be back in a little bit, okay? Just promise not to go anywhere until I get back, okay?” His insistence on getting Stiles’ buy-in is a little annoying, but Stiles wonders if his father has anything to do with this.

Stiles just nods. He hears voices in the hall, but he can’t hear what they’re saying. One of them is definitely Parrish. He’d recognize the sheriff’s voice anywhere.

When the voices stop, his father comes into the room. His dad doesn’t speak. He just comes over, gives Stiles a hug that could put him in cardiac arrest and then leaves. Stiles knows something is going on. Everyone is treating him weirdly – more so than normal.

He wonders where Derek is. He reaches for his pants, but realizes that there’s no phone in his pocket. Also his wallet and keys are missing too. Was he mugged last night? Was that the issue that everyone is having? He doesn’t remember being mugged, but that could be a trauma related amnesia. Is that why they’re all worked up?

It’s probably an hour later and several more tests before Derek shows up. He’s haggard. There’s no other word for it. He has dark circles under his eyes. He looks hunted, miserable without a friend.

“Hey, what’s up?” Stiles says. He tries to take Derek’s hand in his, but Derek keeps a certain distance that doesn’t allow him to reach his hand.

“What happened to you? Where have you been?” A single tear runs down Derek’s cheek. It doesn’t look like he’s breathing as he waits for Stiles to answer.

Stiles shrugs. “I had a few drinks and woke up in a boat. It’s not a big deal. Everyone has an off-night every once in a while. Why is everyone so upset? Was I mugged? I don’t have my keys or my wallet. Is that why everyone is so bent out of shape about one night?” He hears his voice rise. He hears the slightly shrill tone it gets when he’s upset, but he can’t help his emotions. He feels like he’s come into the second act of a play – except it’s his life. He has no idea what his lines should be or what he should be doing.

Derek takes a deep breath and the seconds tick by before he speaks. “You didn’t have an off-night. You’ve been gone for two months.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles realizes that Derek's telling the truth.

 

Stiles looks at Derek, waiting for the punchline, but it doesn’t come. Derek is usually stoned-faced even when he is trying to be jovial, but now he looks like he’d lost his best friend.

“Give me my phone. Apple don’t lie.” Stiles holds out his hand and waited.

Derek shrugs. “Don’t you think we looked for your phone? We could never get a line on where it was. Trust me. We tried. We tried for weeks to get a lead on you through your phone.”

Stiles scans the room. “You’re kidding? My phone is missing. I had part of a manuscript on that thing.” He started to get up out of the bed, and immediately began to lean to one side. His legs were weak and unsteady. Geez, what had he done last night to feel this way the next day? To his eternal embarrassment, Derek had to save him from landing face first on the floor.

Derek lifts him with ease, and then takes out his own phone. His face is flushed as he holds Stiles with one arm. Stiles wonders if it is embarrassment, because Stiles is about to show a certain level of attraction through his thin hospital gown. Or is he frustrated with Stiles for some reason? He knew that Derek hadn’t overexerted himself in lifting Stiles. He could pick up the entire Stilinski family without breaking a sweat.

Derek holds the phone in front of Stiles’ face. “I have your phone tied to my phone tracker app. Watch.”

They wait as the app kicked in. The map appears and then the device hones in on the location of the phone. “You know this is kind of creepy, right?” Stiles asks. “You’re like following me from your phone. Do you think we’re at that point in our relationship?”

Derek responds with a kiss. Stiles has expected a retort or a snort or the eyebrows of disapproval, but instead he gets a kiss that would have made his knees weak without whatever is wrong with him. He starts to protest, but Derek only uses the opportunity to slide his tongue into Stiles’ mouth. He lets his tongue slide over Stiles’ and then pushes it deep into his mouth.

Stiles groans in response. Even though he knows better, his body acts like he hadn’t gotten any in months. The hunger for Derek builds up in him quickly, and Stiles presses his body full again Derek. It doesn’t matter that the gown gives away everything. Stiles figures that Derek already knew that he is attracted to the officer. How could anyone alive not be?

The kiss breaks off as quickly as it began. “I’m still pretty pissed at you,” Derek says, “but I’ve missed you too.”

Stiles just nods, unsure of his legs, the situation, and his phone. He watches the app as it hones into – the hospital. “Dude, the phone is here.”

Derek looks panicked. “Stiles, you have to believe me. You’ve been gone for weeks, and your phone is gone too. I can’t explain this.”

Stiles grabs a robe, partially to hide himself from the embarrassment of the gown. “Let’s get the phone and figure this out.”

Derek walks a few steps behind Stiles, but keeps a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. The move steadies Stiles as they walk down the hall.

“Hit the alarm button,” Stiles says. “We have to be close.”

Derek punches his phone, and immediately a whooping noise can be heard. Stiles walks quickly to the nurses’ station and grabbed the iPhone from counter. “See, I told you it is here.”

However, Stiles feels his face drain of blood. Derek is right about one thing. The date is two months after he remembered drinking at the bar. He’s been missing for 60 days.

 

It is a statement about far gone he is that Stiles let Derek help him back in bed and tuck the covers around him. He would never submit to that if he were feeling well.

Of course, the first thing that Stiles realizes is that his work-in-progress is late. His deadline for the new book had been two weeks ago. His agent has to be pissed. He starts to find the agent in his contacts, but Derek takes the phone. “You’re not ready to be calling the world just yet. For starters, the information about you hasn’t been released to the media yet.”

“The media?” Stiles asks. He has doubts that anyone would care where he’d been for two months.

“Yeah, they called you a modern day Agatha Christie. Just so you don’t have to Google it, she disappeared for nine days during her marital separation and made her husband look guilty as hell of her murder.” Derek rattles off the facts like he knows about mystery writers. Stiles wonders if that concern extends to contemporary authors.

“Did it help her sales?” Stiles asks. He could use a good boost in the ratings before the new book comes out. He does grab the phone and click on the notes app. The full manuscript, or at least what he’d written so far, is there.

Derek raises an eyebrow. “I suppose it did, but that’s hardly the point.”

“Maybe to you,” Stiles says, as he saves the file to his back-up file storage site and iCloud. He couldn’t be too careful if he was that late with the book.

“So who were you going to call?” Derek asks.

“My agent. I need to tell her that my book is going to be late.” Stiles feels a bit panicky. For all of his scattered thoughts, he’s never been late with a book. Hell, he’s never just been on time. It’s always been early – well at least five minutes early.

Derek rolls his eyes. “I don’t think you get it. She knows. Everybody knows. This has been news.” He pulls out his wallet and tugs at a piece of paper inside. He hands it to Stiles. “Don’t rip it.”

Stiles begins to read. It’s a piece about his disappearance. At first Stiles is just touched by the fact that Derek kept an article about him in his wallet. Wow. Then he decides he wants read about his disappearance:

> (Beacon Hills) Today police confirmed that mystery author Stiles Stilinski has gone missing. The man was last seen at a bar with his friends just prior to the disappearance. However, instead of going home, the police found his Jeep in the parking lot out by the preserve.
> 
> The police would not specify if they suspect foul play, but according to inside sources, Stilinski’s apartment showed signs of a struggle. Today the police department did a sweep of the woods near the preserve, but did not find any signs of Stilinski.
> 
> Stilinski is no stranger to disappearing. Twice during a recent murder case, according to an unnamed source, Stilinski was kidnapped by people who were concerned that he was too close to the truth of a particular crime. The police would not discuss the any possible motivation for his disappearance, other than to say that it was unlikely to be a suicide.
> 
> Stilinski, best known as the author of the Howl series, has been working on a novel set locally. He’s the son of John Stilinski, the long-time sheriff of Beacon Hills.

 

Stiles looks at Derek again. “So this is a real thing? Someone took me and kept me for two months and then set me adrift down the Beacon Hills River?”

Derek looks chagrined. “That’s what it looks like. Some people are suggesting that you did it yourself, but the doctors have seen some signs of a trauma of some sort, but nothing to explain why you can’t remember anything.”

Stiles looks down at his hands, thinking for a minute. “Derek, I can’t tell you what happened, because I don’t know but I can tell you that I’d never misuse police resources to sell more books. That’s not me.”

Derek looks at him and gave him a small smile. Stiles could feel the distance between them, even after that kiss. He suspects that Derek was, at best, skeptical of the story. If he believes it all, then Derek would be dating someone who made the police look bad just to sell books.

He knows Derek well enough to know that the man would not get over that. Police work and respect for law and order are in his blood. He could never forgive Stiles if he’d abused police resources.

Stiles sighs and starts going through his emails. “How long until I can start contacting people?” he asked.

“About a half hour,” Derek says. “What’s the rush?”

“Apparently, I’m going to have to prove that my disappearance wasn’t my fault.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is off to a good start, but I worry that I don't have much of Castle to follow for a guideline for the overarching plotline. This could be interesting!
> 
> As always you can find me at http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles turns to Liam for help in finding out what happened to him.

 

Stiles waits until Derek leaves to get out his phone. News embargo or not, he has to start working on finding the answers. He needs them for Derek, but even more so, he needs them for himself. He grabs the old push button phone in the room and dials Liam’s number. Stiles is surprised. For all that he couldn’t remember, things prior to the disappearance are still clear in his mind.

That pointed to some sort of traumatic experience taking his memories more than hit-on-the-head amnesia. Was that really even a thing? He knows better than to use it in a book. Readers would literally _howl_ if he tried that.

Liam answers on the third ring. “Hello,” he says tentatively. Stiles wants to gush into the phone. He’d missed his friends, and he was worried that he’d been gone so long. He never wanted to make anyone suffer for him, and this had apparently made them grieve for him. Stiles thinks of the old Tom Sawyer story where Tom got to watch his own funeral. This is like that story, except that Stiles gets to see the aftermath – the anger and denial that came with the grief of losing a loved one.

“Liam, it’s me.”

“Me who?” Liam asks.

Of course, he wouldn’t think that it can be Stiles. That would sound supernatural and again Stiles knows that woo-woo stuff only belonged in books.

“Liam, are you sitting down? This is Stiles. I know I’ve been gone, but the police found me. I’m at the hospital, and I have questions – lots of questions. Can you stop by?” He’d means to sound breezy about the disappearance, but instead Stiles can hear the catch in his voice and a note of pleading. The inflections scares him. He is usually in charge of his emotions, but not now. Had something happened to him while he’d been gone? Something so bad that he’d deliberately blocked it out of his mind.

“Bullshit. Who is this and why are you fucking with me this way?” If Stiles sounded bad, Liam sounded wrecked. He almost thinks he heard a soft sob over the line.

“Liam, honest. It’s me, Stiles. I have some questions about the night I disappeared. I can’t remember them.”

There is a pause at the other end of the line. “Hold on a moment.” Stiles can hear the sound of a phone in the background and Liam ask about a number before he came back on. “Okay, you sound like Stiles, and this is a hospital number. I’m going to stop by the hospital, but I swear that if you are pulling my leg, I’ll kick the shit out of you – and then some.”

Stiles grins at Liam’s anger issues. At least some things haven’t changed while he was gone. “I’ll be here. Room 1523 – and don’t tell anyone yet. The police are putting out a statement in 20 minutes.”

The phone goes dead without a response. Stiles leans back to wait. If he has truly been at a gay club the night he had disappeared then it was likely that Danny, Parrish, and Mason – Liam’s best friend, would all have been there. Liam would likely have gone too. Danny and Parrish are out, because they are involved in the police and would tell Derek immediately about the breach of information. Stiles doesn’t know Mason well enough to have his phone number memorized. Liam is another matter. He had been calling Liam with help for research for a while now.

At 28, Stiles feels that he didn’t have the edge anymore. He has actually been thinking about settling down with Derek. He winces thinking of how Derek must have felt with Stiles just disappeared. Probably the same hurt that Stiles feels now when the dream of being involved with Derek was slipping away.

So he’d enlisted the help of some of the younger men in Beacon Hills to get that edge back. He lived vicariously through them, so that his younger characters didn’t sound like they went to bed at 9:30. Liam had given him plenty of local color and stories that ended up in his books.

Stiles thinks about the book he’d been writing when he’d disappeared. He can barely remember the plotline for it. He guesses that was just another one of the vagaries of the human mind, since it has nothing to do with his disappearance.

Liam is in the room before Stiles has finished trying to recall the plot of his book. He practically puts a hole in the wall by shoving the door open too hard. Liam stops, rubs an arm over his eyes and then grabs Stile in a bear hug.

“It’s you. It’s you,” he says, which Stiles thinks is pretty redundant. Of course it is him. Who else would it be?

“Hey, Liam,” Stiles says quietly, feeling somewhat embarrassed by the show of emotions. He has to keep reminding himself that Liam had thought him dead. Stiles had – well, Stiles didn’t know what he’d felt while he was gone.

The reunion lasts far too long in Stiles’ mind. He has too many things to do before the story broke on TV. “So what happened that night? I need to know everything.” Stiles says as Liam finally broke the hug.

“You tell me. You know better than we do.” Liam stares down at Stiles with those puppy dog eyes and for a moment, Stiles wants to just make up a story to give Liam some happiness. However, he knows that would get him no closer to Derek.

“I don’t remember a thing,” Stiles says softly.

Liam takes a deep breath. “Wow. Okay, well, Mason wanted to go out. He’d heard that Brett was going to be at some club, and he wanted to hook – meet up with him. So we were going, and you decided to tag along. Derek was working night shift, and you said that your muse had failed you for the evening.”

“The Jungle?” Stiles asks, thinking of that club where Matt had been murdered.  

“No, I said Mason – not my grandpa. That underground place. I can’t remember the name of it right now, but anyway, we went there and we all had a few drinks. Mason and Brett were dancing together, and we were talking – you and me.”

“About what?” Stiles asks, not remembering any of this.

“Your new book and how lousy it’s going. You had a few drinks more than the rest of us that night.”

“Then what happened?”

Liam shrugs. “I went to the restroom. When I came back, you were gone. I was a little worried about you driving home, so I tried to call your cell, but it went right to voicemail. That was the last I saw you.”

“Didn’t you ask around? Mason – Brett?” Stiles feels a little anxious now. His anxiety hasn’t kicked in since he’s been back from the missing, but he can feel a panic attack on the edge of his conscious now. Now is not the time for that.

“Yeah, none of them saw you. Mason figured you went home with someone and didn’t want us to see. That way we couldn’t tell Derek.” Liam looks a bit sheepish, as if cheating – or near cheating – is something he doesn’t want to think about with his friends.

Liam’s dad comes running into the room. He shouts a quick hello to both of them and then turns on the crappy little hospital TV. Stiles can hardly believe that he’s on television. Someone has given the news broadcast a copy of the book jacket photo from the last novel. He hates that photo.

He hears a reiteration of what Derek has already told him. Now that he’s heard Liam’s version of events. What if he did cheat on Derek? Does he even want to learn what happened? Some things might be worse than not knowing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been too long. I've been trying to stuff too many pieces into each day, and this mystery keeps getting shoved down. 
> 
> As always you can find out more about me at: http://www.jeffreymarks.com
> 
> Leave me some comments and questions.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles learns more about his condition -- and loses it. 
> 
> (There is a panic attack in this chapter, in case that's a trigger.)

 

“Stiles, you’re a national news story,” Dr. Dunbar says – as if that’s any help at all. “We’re all just glad to have you back home.”

“So what’s the prognosis?” Stiles asks, wondering if there’s anything in the lab work that would indicate where he’d been.

Dunbar pulls out a folder and begins to read. “You were severely dehydrated when you came in. The lab guessed that you hadn’t had anything to drink in 24 hours or more. So the police are assuming that you were in the boat that long.”

Stiles wondered. If he could determine the average current of the Beacon Hills River, then perhaps he could figure out a range of locations where he might have been put in the boat. It’s a long-shot, but it’s all he’s got at the moment.

“What else?” he asks.

“You’ve been fed regularly. There were no signs of malnourishment or starvation. So you were out lost on your own somewhere. Your hands and feet showed some signs of cuts and bruises, but not enough to suggest that you lived outdoors. Your nails were trimmed and your hair was washed, so it wasn’t too taxing on you physically.”

Stiles doesn’t like where this was going. He had either cared for himself at a hidden location or someone had taken care of him. Not too well, but well enough that he would stay alive and somewhat comfortable.

He thinks back again to Agatha Christie. Shortly after the release of one of her best novels, she went missing. She’d recently learned that her husband was having an affair and wanted a divorce. She left her car on the side of the road and vanished.

Over a week later, she was discovered. She’d been staying at a spa, registered under the name of her husband’s mistress. The press eviscerated her, and she never spoke of it again, even leaving it out of her autobiography.

While it hadn’t apparently been a spa and he had been happily moving ahead with Derek, his disappearance is beginning to have all the hallmarks of a Christie. This was not good. Nearly 100 years later, people still knew what a mystery writer did – for whatever reasons.

“If I was taken care of, then why can’t I remember anything?” Stiles asks, feeling down about the whole thing. He wanted answers, and while he was still intact, he was not back to normal by any means.

“That’s one of the things that’s puzzling us,” Dr. Dunbar says. “I think we’ve ruled out a traumatic brain injury. The CT scan was normal, and the MRI didn’t show anything. Granted that it could have happened early on – as early as the day you disappeared – but in order to forget two months, I would think it would have to be fairly significant. There’s no sign of that.”

“So what’s left? This is not normal!” Stiles hears his voice squeak a little, and he’s concerned. One of the things he’s always been able to rely on is his brain and his capacity to reason things out. Now he can’t be so sure that another vanishing spell won’t happen again.

“Either a traumatic event that has your mind has blocked out or some sort of drug that inhibited your mind’s ability to move short-term memories to long term. There are a number of medications that could be indicated. They’re running those tests now. In the case that it’s an emotional response, we’ve scheduled a few sessions while you’re here with Dr. Morrell. She’s very good at what she does, and she can help you learn what you can about the missing time period.”

Stiles panics a little. He’s going to be going to a shrink. That’s the last thing in the world that he wants right now. He wants answers, not “tell me how you feel.” He tries to look into his mind again, but it’s just darkness. It’s all hazy.

Dr. Dunbar looks at the phalanx of tests run again, and his brows furrow. Stiles is almost in panic mode now. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you put this in here?” he says, holding out a photo.

Stiles takes it and looks at it. The photo is clearly dated one month ago, during Stiles’ disappearance. Stiles is the subject of the photo. He’s sitting in front of a fireplace, reading a book. He looks happy. He looks healthy. There are no other people in the photo, which means that there was enough space around him to make a break for it – but he hadn’t. He’d read a book rather than run back to his family – and Derek.

He flips the photo over, but there’s nothing on the back. “What the hell?” Stiles begins.

Dunbar holds up a hand. “You shouldn’t get agitated. It’s not good for you.”

“You gave me a photo on me during my disappearance where I look totally relaxed and then tell me not to get agitated. Where did you get this?”

Dunbar holds up the files. “It was in your chart. I thought maybe you put it there.”

Stiles shakes his head. “No, I did not get up and put a photo of me in my chart. Look at the police report. When I came in, I didn’t have any photos on me.”

The doctor looks a bit alarmed, and Stiles can guess why. He’s feeling the panic rush over him. He’s scared, alone and unsure of what’s going on. He knows what’s next.

Dunbar must too, because he presses the call button and gives the nurse some orders to bring in a sedative. She does, and Stiles can feel peace return after she injects the medication into his IV.

“Stiles, the rest of this can wait,” Dunbar says. “You need to get some rest. You’re going to need it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting a few more chapters up before I start back to school in a few weeks. 
> 
> As always you can find out more at http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles talks to someone about his experience -- and then Stiles gets down to work on finding out what happened to him the night he disappeared.

 

When Stiles awakes, Dr. Morrell is sitting quietly by his bed. He tries to form words, but his brain still isn’t functioning after the IV of whatever they gave him. He gives her a weak grin, and she gazes at him like a lab experiment.

He does notice that she’s holding the photo that Dr. Dunbar had shown Stiles earlier. For several moments, the room is quiet, just the noise of orderlies and nurses on duty. Stiles listens to the sounds, wishing he was anywhere else. He closes his eyes, and when he reopens them, he’s still in the hospital.

“Feeling better, Mr. Stilinski?” she asks.

Stiles nods. He knows Morrell’s brother, Dr. Deaton, who works with Scott and the animal rescue organization. He’s a veterinarian who donates tons of hours to help animals that no one else wants. Stiles thinks perhaps that his sister is doing the same here, trying to help humans that no one else wants – like him.

 “So let’s talk for a bit, shall we?” she asks. Her tone is calm and relaxing, as if she is talking to a friend about the weather.

“About what?” Stiles croaks. His throat is parched from the medication, and Morrell pours him a glass of water and hands it to him.

“Whatever is on your mind,” she replies.

Stiles knows what a load of crap that is. If he starts talking about any of the hundred things on his mind at the moment, she’s going to try to turn the subject around to his disappearance and why he can’t remember anything. He can’t tell if she believes him or if she’s dubious about his story too. He wishes people would just wear t-shirts with their opinion about the matter on them. It would be nicer than trying to guess the feelings of each person who stepped into the room.

“I’ve lost two months. My boyfriend doesn’t believe me, and now I’m getting photos at the hospital of me looking content and happy – and free during this mysterious disappearance. I’m stressed and lonely and confused. Is that enough?”

She smiles. “It sounds like it. Where do you want to begin with this? I only have 45 minutes for you today.”

“You tell me. I don’t know anything anymore.”

She nods. “It must feel that way. My first question is do you remember anything from that time period?” Now she’s scribbling some notes on a pad. Stiles wishes he could see them. He’s been to enough psychologists and therapists to know that they all do this – and it always bugs him.

“Nothing concrete. I have a few hazy memories, but I mean, those could be other times or places, but they feel like they’re recent. It’s hard to know if I really know these things or my mind is just trying to fill a void.”

“So what types of memories do you think you had?” Her hand is practically flying over the page at this point.

“I don’t remember reading that book by a fire, but I have a vague memory of looking out the window of a room like that.” Stiles makes a face, trying to force the memory to come up again, but he can’t. It’s almost as if someone has thrown wax paper across his mind, so that his memories aren’t viewable these days.

“So what do you remember about the view?” Morrell asks without any emotion. Her lack of enthusiasm is starting to annoy Stiles.

“Nothing really. Some trees, a creek or a small river maybe, but nothing that looks familiar. It usually comes to me in a dream, so I don’t even know if it’s real or not, but I’ve had the dream more than once, so it may be.”

“Anything else?” she asks.

Stiles shrugs. “Nothing. Not a thing. Two months are just gone.”

“Stiles, one of two things happened. Either you experienced something horrible and your mind has decided to protect you from that memory by blocking it out, or you’ve been given some drugs which inhibit the mind from storing these in long-term memory.” She looks at him again. “I’m thinking it’s a drug induced memory loss, given the photo. You don’t look traumatized.”

Stiles sighs. “You’re talking about Anterograde amnesia, and the benzodiazepine drugs. I did a whole story around this in my third book.”

“Good, then you know what to expect. Without the drugs in your system, you’ll likely go back to normal now.” She stands up and looks down at him on the bed.

“But I still won’t know what happened to me?”

“Probably not. I wouldn’t count on it. This will likely be a hole in your memory for the rest of your life.”

She closes the door on the way out.

Stiles assumes that the phone embargo should be over by now. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out with the medication they gave him, but even at a guess of an hour, he’s gone over the time set by the police.

He uses the hospital telephone, since no one has given him a cell phone. He misses his cell and makes plans to get one as fast as he can.

Punching in the numbers on the actual keys, he dials a familiar number.

Mason picks up on the first ring. “Who is calling me from the hospital?” he asks.

“Mason, buddy. It’s Stiles.” He’s glad to hear a familiar voice. Even though he doesn’t remember anything of the last two months, Stiles can still feel that time has gone by now. He wonders if that’s real or if everyone has been impressing that upon him until he’s starting to internalize it.

“Stiles,” Mason’s voice comes out as a squeal. “How are you? Where have you been? We’ve all been worried sick.”

Stiles goes through the routine. He notices that he’s starting to develop a patter, a set script of what he tells people. It’s just easier that way, instead of trying to articulate the weirdness that it his life.

“We all wondered where you got to that night. I mean, Derek wasn’t there, and some guys thought you’d gone home with someone else, but I was like – that’s not Stiles. Then you went missing, and we weren’t sure what to think.”

“So what happened? I usually try to stay with the group,” Stiles asks. He feels like everything he says lately is a question.

“We were all dancing, and some guy came up and asked you to dance. You didn’t want to, but the rest of us told you it was okay to dance with other guys, just not slow dance with them. So you danced some more. We went to get a drink, and when we went back to the dance floor, you were gone.”

“And who was this guy?”

“At the time, nobody knew, but Brett hangs out there fairly often, and he’s asked around. The guy’s name is Theo.”

“What did he say about the dance?” Stiles demands. He feels like the door to the missing months might have been opened. He wants to know more.

Mason sighs. “He said that you two danced and you wanted to leave with him. You went back to his place, and left around 1:15am, after you’d done the nasty. That was the last he saw of you. The police went over his alibi again and again. You know how Parrish is. They followed up with all the street cameras and business cameras they could find to track his story, and finally they had to just say that they didn’t have enough to hold him.”

Stiles groans. He should have known that Parrish would have done all he could. The man could be way too handsy with him, but overall, he is a good police officer and a good friend. He wouldn’t have let any stone go unturned to find Stiles. Then Stiles thinks of Derek and wonders how bad he must have felt. He lost his boyfriend in two ways that night. Adultery and disappearance. No wonder he isn’t here now.

A nurse comes in and hands him a bag of his own clothes. “Detective Hale dropped these off for you. Get dressed. You’re going home.”

Stiles feels another panic attack coming on, but he fights it back. It’s been a cocoon of solitude here at the hospital. The thought of picking up his entire life after two months scares the hell out of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summer has made me sloth-like. I need some school routine, and I'll get back on schedule for writing more often!
> 
> As always you can find me at: http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is being harassed by the kidnappers, and Derek shows up to help.

 

Stiles opens the door to his apartment. The first thing he notices was the smell, a dank, dirty stench that hits him in the face as soon as he enters. Granted that he hasn’t been the world’s best housekeeper, but hadn’t someone at least bothered to clean up a little in his absence?

He opens a few window and puts a box fan in one to blow out some of the stink. It’s a gentle breeze that triggers something, but he’s not sure what. Is it a memory from the two months that he’s forgotten? Stiles tries to bring back the image, but the more he tries, the more ephemeral it becomes. He gives up and decides to see if there are any clues in his apartment.

Stiles looks around, hunting to see if someone had gone through his possessions while he’d been away. He knows that the police would take a look, but he’d hoped that he could detect any signs of another presence, one that was less benign. He pokes through his clothes, such as they are, and his DVD collection. Nothing looks like it is missing and nothing looks like it’s been —   He stops. There’s a set of DVDs that are new to him. _Taken_ , _Taken_ 2, and _Taken_ 3\. What the hell? Is someone just screwing with him or what now? He had never even watched those movies, and yet here they are on his shelf.

He has two questions to answer out of this situation. The first is easy. Who put these DVDs on his shelf? That’s a question that he has no answer for. He knows that he can rule out the police and his father. They had no reason to do something so asinine. So it had to be someone else.

The first (and most obvious answer) is the person who took him. Yet he can’t come up with a solid reason for doing that. Stiles already knows that he’s missing two months of his life. The whole world knows that. He also knows now that someone has been here – in his apartment for some reason.

And that’s his second question? Why would someone announce their presence in this way? It’s almost like they want to fuck with him. It’s bad enough that he can’t remember a thing about his life, but now this is just someone jerking him around for fun. If the stakes weren’t so high, he would suspect that Scott or another friend had done this as a joke. But Scott would never do this regarding his disappearance. He knows that his friend wouldn’t think this is funny.

He grabs the three DVDs and put them on the dining room table. Maybe something’s been put on the DVDs instead of just the movies. Yet Stiles is not up to watching them right now. He doesn’t want to see any reminders of being kidnapped. He is not sure that he could take it.

Instead, he moves on to the mail. There’s a ridiculous stack of mail on the table, and Stiles drags a trash can over for the junk mail. He quickly sorts the paper mountain into three piles: junk mail, bills and personal materials.

Junk mail is by far the biggest portion of the stack and Stiles has to put a new bag in the trashcan to handle all of it. The bills – well, Stiles is hoping that someone took care of them while he was gone. He wishes again that he had his cellphone, so that he could check his balance, but that’s a chore he’s postponing. How do you explain to the phone company that you’ve been kidnapped for two months and you can’t find your phone?

He opens the bills and smooths out the notices. None of them are demanding payment or else, so Stiles assumes that his father has paid for the utilities and things while he’s been away. He says a silent thank-you to the man. It couldn’t have been easy to pay the bills for your only son who may or may not come back to you.

The third stack is the smallest by far, but it’s the most interesting to him. Stiles slits open the first letter, which is a thank-you note from Scott. It is rather poignant, given that Stiles was missing when he wrote it. Stiles gets a bit choked up at all the sentiment in the note. He’s glad to be back – if for no other reason, he’s got some good friends here.

He slits open the second letter, still glowing from the kind words from his pal. He stops cold as he pulls out the note instead. It’s another photo, a different one this time. The message on the back says, “Wishing you were here.”

Stiles scrambles through the rest of the stack. There are three more notes, just the same as the first. He opens each one carefully, slitting at the top while holding it by the corners. He pulls out the photos by the edge and reads the inscription.

The second one is the same as the photo that Dr. Dunbar had shown him. Stiles is reading a book by the fire, looking content. “Enjoying a quiet night by myself,” it reads. Stiles knows that this isn’t his handwriting. It’s suggestive of his script, but there are too many variations to be his at all. A cursory glance would suggest that Stiles had written it, but any attempt to look at it forensically would tell the truth.

The third one is of Stiles looking out of a window, the photo showing only his back, and the last is another, different photo of Stiles by a fireplace.

Stiles knows that he has to give these to Parrish, but he’s in no hurry to rush to the station. He can do a few things first. He scans the photos into his computer. Then he puts all of the photos and the envelopes in a large Ziploc bag. The CSI guys can have a field day with this now. Perhaps there’s some DNA residue on the envelope’s glue or fingerprints somewhere. He can hope.

Rather than try to do anything else, Stiles closes the window, grabs the bag of photos and opens the front door. He immediately runs into Derek’s chest. It’s a nice chest, a broad massive, hairy, hot chest, but still an obstacle that he runs into.

He looks at Derek, who seems to not want to meet his eyes. “I was just heading out. Want to come with me?” Stiles asks, wondering why Derek is here.

“Where are you going?” Derek asks. He’s obviously trying to see what’s in the bag, but since it’s down at Stiles’ side he can’t do it.

Stiles holds up the bag of photos. Derek takes them and looks at the front and back of each one. There are no words spoken at all while he investigates. “These came for you while you were gone?” Derek asks.

“Yeah, I’m guessing that whoever kidnapped me thought that the police, or my dad – same thing—would find them and open them, but it didn’t happen. That’s not my writing, so this is going to be interesting.”

Derek looks at the photos again. “Why would someone do this?” he asks.

Stiles feels the heat from Derek’s body, because neither one of them has moved. It’s comforting, and much as he doesn’t remember the last three months, he also knows that he’s missed it. “I’m thinking that the original intent was to try to satisfy people that I was out on a trip and would be back. But now, it’s just seeming like it’s harassment to freak me out.” Stiles tells him about the photo that Dr. Dunbar had shown him at the hospital.

“Is there anything else?” Derek asks.

Stiles explains the three movies and finding them on his shelves.

Derek looks to the table. “Pop some popcorn, because we’re going to watch some movies now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can check me out at: http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek and Stiles watch some movies.

 

Stiles stands still for a moment, trying to determine if this is a good idea. Derek’s already been hurt by the insinuations of his departure from a club. Now he’s going to watch movies with who knows what on them. Plus he still needs to get the photos to Parrish to see if there’s any evidence that can be pulled from them as well.

Having no memory sucks, he thinks as he moves away from the door and looks in the cabinet to see if there’s popcorn. Fortunately, popcorn is one of those foods that does not spoil, and so soon enough he’s got a full bowl of piping hot goodness.

Derek manages to have a pair of latex gloves on him. Stiles tries not to let his mind wander to what Derek might have brought those gloves over for. What had he had in mind?

Derek tries to only touch the edges of the DVD. The DVD itself looks legit. It has the pertinent information about the movie on the front of it along with a photo of Liam Neeson on it, and what’s not to like about that.

“Who still has a DVD player?” Derek asks. “That’s pretty 20th century.”

Stiles tries to ignore the comment, but can’t. “Just because it’s not a Betamax doesn’t mean you should hate on it.”

Derek gives him a small smile, and for a minute, things seem like they were back to normal between them.

The movie starts and begins to play. Stiles cringes at the graphic depiction of the abduction, the girl screaming and crying for her father as she’s dragged from the room. Stiles starts to cry. He can’t help it.

Derek stops the DVD. “We can _not_ watch this if it’s too much for you,” he says gently. That only makes Stiles cry more. Derek is being gentle with him when there’s a good chance that Stiles got into this mess by leaving the club with someone.

Derek just sits there and waits while Stiles tries to get it together. Slowly it winds down to sniffles and then just damp eyes. Derek pulls him close and tucks him under his arm. He starts the movie again.

Stiles doesn’t cry again as the movie plays. There’s nothing particularly related to his own story from the DVD. That is a Slavic white slavery ring. How could that possibly relate to him? He’s never even done any research on such things.

About 45 minutes into the movie, Stiles is getting restless. This is a waste of time, though it’s nice sitting next to Derek, although he hasn’t said a word since he restarted the movie.

Suddenly the screen goes blank. Stiles sits up straight, nearly knocking the bowl of popcorn from Derek’s lap. Derek has tensed up, but he doesn’t move. He’s still watching the screen with every bit of focus he has.

The images begin to reappear except it’s no longer the movie. There are two men with masks on who are carrying a bag of something. Stiles starts to realize that it’s not a bag, but him. He’s apparently passed out or rendered unconscious. The two men are carrying him towards a car, a black Mustang with the license pixelated. They pop the trunk and throw Stiles in. None too softly, he notices. He winces even though it’s only him in the past, not any current pain.

The trunk is closed, and the two men get in the car and drive off. The movie returns with a girl screaming, and Stiles fights the urge to join her. What just happened? Is this some sort of joke or is this real footage of his abduction? He doesn’t know. Stiles knows that he can’t answer those questions.

The rest of the movie plays out with no more interruptions. Derek gets up and replaces the DVD using the latex gloves again. Stiles knows he must be feeling a little better because now he’s full on curious as to why Derek is carrying them with him here.

This time, Derek fast forwards through the DVD. He moves quickly through the film, which Stiles has already seen twice on late-night cable when he should have been writing. So he doesn’t feel like he’s missing much.

The same thing happens here. Stiles notes the time, which is 45:45. He wonders if the time has any particular meaning, or if it’s just a random marker used by whoever did this. The video is similar to the one before in that Stiles seems to be lifeless and the others are wearing masks.

They take a few moments to pose Stiles in various positions and take photographs of him. Stiles recognizes the poses as those he’s seen from the photos. He gulps hard. This is a very well-organized plot, given that they went to this much trouble. It’s unnerving for Stiles to watch his body be flung this way and that – manipulating him for the purpose of the photographs.

He shivers a bit and then feels Derek’s hand on his shoulder. The detective pulls Stiles back so that he’s resting against the crook of his arm again. It feels comfortable and safe there.

The DVD goes back to the movie, and no other images are seen.

Derek repeats the process for the third DVD. Stiles looks at him. “This is going to be the part where they put me in the dinghy, isn’t it?” he asks.

“If it follows the pattern, then yes. Beginning, middle and end. Like one of your stories.”

Stiles does not like the comparison at all. He doesn’t think of his books as things of evil or malice. They’re entertainment. They’re supposed to be fun, dammit.

At 45:45, the show flips over to Stiles again, who is being unceremoniously dumped in to the dinghy. There’s nothing to indicate why this was being done or how long it had been. The videos specifically does not have any date-time stamps on it. Another point to the thoroughness of the videographer. After the scene, it goes back to the movie, but they don’t watch it.

“So why put these in your place?” Derek asks. “What purpose is served?”

“If it’s to make me feel weak or out of control of my life, then the purpose was met. I seem to be permanently out of it in these things.”

“Was it just to freak you out? We’d know a lot more if we knew who put these in your place.”

Stiles meets his gaze and holds it. He is feeling a bit bolder now that Derek seems to believe him. “I would just like to know if it was friend or foe. Finding out the purpose would tell me that.”

Derek nods. “Or finding out who did this would tell us the purpose.”

Stiles has to agree. Either road will lead to the same answers, but he can barely think that it is someone he knows who left these here. How could a friend have participated in this?

“So what are your thoughts?” Stiles asks finally.

“On what?” Derek asks. His face is stony, and Stiles can’t read his thoughts at the moment.

“Everything.”

Derek clears his throat. “Look, if you’re asking if I believe you, yeah, I do now. I flipped out before, because it seemed like you left with a trick and it went bad. These DVDs are not the work of a trick gone bad. There’s multiple people at work here, and a lot of preparation. So no, I don’t believe what seemed to be true at first glance.”

Stiles leans in and kisses Derek. The slow press of his lips against the police officer’s feels good. Even at a subconscious level, Stiles knows he’s been alone the entire time he’s been gone. He couldn’t articulate how he knows it, but he does.

He pulls away and looks at Derek again. “So what do you think happened?”

“Beats the hell out of me. Someone took you, dressed you up pretty, took some photos, and sent you home. I have no idea why?”

Stiles told Derek about the change of videos at 45:45. Neither of them have any idea what that means, but Stiles is sure it must mean something.

Derek gathers the evidence including the photos and takes it with him. He kisses Stiles gently again before pulling the door closed. Stiles is left with too many thoughts and decides to head out of his place. He can’t stand being there alone, thinking that he has been manipulated in this way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always you can learn more about me at: http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles visits his father and comes away with a bucket full of clues.

 

Stiles opts to visit his dad. He wants to see him, knowing that he’s been worried sick about Stiles’ disappearance. They are all the family that they have. Stiles knows he’d be stressed beyond belief if the situation were reversed.

He pulls up in front of his dad’s house, the family home he’d lived in for years. A police car is parked in his normal spot, so Stiles parks across the road and walks to the house. He’s a bit annoyed, because likely it means Parrish is here and talking to his dad. The police chief and the former police chief in a room with a guy who can’t remember his recent past is not going to be the little family reunion he’d hoped for.

He knocks on the door and then enters. Sure enough, Parrish is standing in the living room, talking to his father, who looks older and worn. Stiles realizes that this is the result of his disappearance, and he feels a pang of guilt. How could years of trying to make him healthier compare to the stress of thinking his only child was dead?

Parrish doesn’t move. This is the second time Stiles has seen him, and his attitude is entirely different. The flirtations and subtle touching are gone. He’s professional, quiet and reserved. Definitely not the same guy Stiles knew.

His dad stands there a minute, just taking him in, and then strides over and grabs Stiles in his arms. The move almost knocks the breath out of him, but Stiles returns the hug. Even though it doesn’t seem like it’s been two months, he knows it has been for everyone else. He holds his father as long as the man hugs him. They finally break, and Stiles puts a hand on his dad’s shoulder. At least someone around here is still glad to see him.

“I was beginning to think…” his father starts and then stops as tear well up in his eyes.

“I know, but you should remember that it’s hard to keep a Stilinski man down, right?” he tries to play the moment off with humor, but Stiles feels his heart break as he see his father.

The former sheriff chuckles and wipes an eye. “So what do you remember about all of this?” his father asks. “I knew you’d come by when you were out of the hospital. They told me that you’re were having tests run, so I just decided to wait. Plus I wanted to make sure I didn’t cry like a baby when I saw you.”

“Not much. This whole thing doesn’t make any sense. I can’t remember a thing, but I have no idea why I was taken.” Stiles winces as he uses the word, thinking again about the movies he’d just watched with Derek.

“No memories?” his dad asks. Stiles can see the skepticism in his eyes and hates it. He shouldn’t have to feel like he’s lying to his dad, even when he’s not.

“None. The doctors think it might be drug-induced.” He goes on to explain what the doctor and Melissa had told him about the condition and its effects.

Parrish is still standing there, but hasn’t said a word. Stiles wonders what the hell is going on? It’s so obvious now that something is up that he can’t wait for the sheriff to leave so he can ask his father what’s happened to the man.

His father looks at Parrish. “Any clues on what’s going on?”

Parrish just shakes his head.

“That’s not the weirdest part. When I went home today, I found three movies with footage of me during my captivity. It’s on DVD and it shows me being taken, during the captivity and as they release me.” He shudders, thinking about experience of watching those images of himself – a feeling of disembodiment since he doesn’t remember a thing about the experience. If it weren’t for the fact that everyone was telling him that he’d been gone, Stiles would suspect that a doppelganger had been used to make the films.

“Who has these films?” Parrish asks. “Why don’t you have them with you?”

Stiles explains that Derek had taken them to be processed in the city. The answer only mollifies Parrish slightly.

Stiles decides that he needs to get away from the sulking sheriff for a few minutes. “Can I go up to my room for a few minutes? I’ve been wanting some comfort since I got home.”

His father pats him on the back. “You don’t need to explain. Absolutely.”

Stiles practically runs up the stairs and opens the door to his room. The feel of the room is dusty and forgotten. Stiles definitely doesn’t like the vibe he’s getting. It’s been left exactly like the last time he’d visited home. No dusting or tidying up. The bed is still unmade and the desk is still littered with papers, where Stiles had spent some quiet time researching something he couldn’t even remember now.

He looks through the papers and freezes. They are all about disappearances, how to make them happen and how to get away with it. Had he been working on something like this? He can’t remember, but he takes a few sheets of paper off the desk and stuffs them in his pocket.

Under the stack of papers is another surprise – his cellphone. Stiles knows that he didn’t leave it there. He couldn’t have gone more than ten minutes without it. Yet here it is in the last place anyone would look for it. How had someone gotten into the room and stowed it here? The thought that someone has been in his room creeps him out a little.

He pockets the phone and comes back down the stairs. Parrish is thankfully gone. Stiles looks around to make sure that the new sheriff is not to be seen. “What’s up with him? He acts like he hates me,” Stiles asks his father.

“This whole thing has been hard on him,” his father explains.

Stiles feels some warm thoughts for Parrish for a second, thinking that the man really cared about him. Stiles knows that the man likes his body – well, who could blame him – but apparently Parrish had real emotions about him.

“Well, I’m back now, so why’s he treating me like a leper?”

“Your re-appearance only makes this harder for him. Parrish has been dating the main suspect, Theo, for about the same length of time as you’ve been gone. It’s not easy to be the boyfriend of a possible kidnapper/killer.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always check me out at http://www.jeffreymarks.com. 
> 
> I'm on the road for the next two weeks so updates may be spotty.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles learns some information and is chased by an unknown person.

 

Stiles sprints out the door to catch up with Parrish. No way that the new sheriff has been keeping this tidbit from him. Stiles considers Parrish a friend, even though their history suggests something a bit more than that.

He catches up with Parrish by the cruiser. Stiles can see his father standing at the window, watching the scene. Stiles stands close to Parrish, and he can sense the tension in the other man. They’d been friends with benefits at one point, and right now, Stiles can feel that old surge of electricity run through him as he stands inches from the other man.

“What?” Parrish asks, not moving closer to Stiles, but not moving away either.

“I want to know what’s going on here. You and Theo? When did that happen?” Stiles licks his lips, and he sees the Sheriff watch his tongue run around the edge of his mouth.

“If you must know, it happened just before you disappeared. We’d gone out on a couple of dates before that night.”

“You mean the night that I supposedly went home with Theo. The night that I disappeared.” For a second, Stiles begins to see a glimmer of some other scenario at work here. There’s more to this than Parrish wants to let on.

“Yeah, that night.” Parrish looks at Stiles, but then stares off over his shoulder.

“Do you really think I went home with Theo and had sex? I’m interested in Derek, not Theo, you know that – right?”

Parrish nods, but still doesn’t make eye contact. “Yeah, I know that.”

“So what’s eating you?” Stiles can think of a few things. Parrish might know that the whole thing is a hoax. He could know that Theo is behind the disappearance, though Stiles knows deep down that Parrish would report the crime if he knew. Or he could just be jealous, either of his relationship with Derek or of Theo’s supposed infidelity.

“Theo didn’t have sex with you that night. In fact, Theo went home with me. He didn’t have anything to do with you leaving the club.” Parrish’s eyes are still averted, but Stiles notices the flush in his skin.

“But what then? I don’t understand. What is going on?” Stiles’ frustration is through the roof. He thinks of Parrish as a friend, and yet asking a few questions is like pulling teeth here. Why should it be so difficult to get a clear understanding of what happened that night?

“Theo lied. He’s up for a part in a play in the city. He thought that the notoriety would be good for his profile. But it hasn’t been. The theater won’t even call him back. And now not only can’t he get a job acting, he can’t go public with the information. He came and told the police that he’d lied, but the damage had already been done.” Parrish turns to look at Stiles now, and there’s real anguish in his face. The eyes look like they might cry, and Parrish has bit down hard on his lower lip.

“Screw him,” Stiles says, thinking through the possibilities now. The field is wide open on what could have happened to him. “What happened to me? Did he see me leave with someone or get drugged or mugged?”

Parrish shrugs. “I have no idea. I can just tell you that Theo did not go home with you and didn’t have sex with you. That much I do know.”

Stiles thinks of Derek and the pained expression he’s worn since Stiles has returned. He walks away a few paces to call him, but Parrish shouts out. “If you’re calling Derek, he already knows. He’s known for a few days now.”

Stiles nearly drops the phone. Derek knew and still made him feel like this? What was going on with him?

Without saying a word to Parrish, Stiles gets in his car and drives. It feels good to be behind the wheel again. Stiles feels a bit awkward at first, and the feeling only serves to remind him that he’s been gone for two months. It’s like he’s been abducted by aliens without the probe, but enough people have been a pain in his ass since his return that it feels the same.

Theo lied about leaving with him to get attention. Stiles thinks about where this leaves the investigation – back at square one, he thinks ruefully. Stiles was at a club and disappeared. End of story. He could have been drugged, which Stiles is thinking is the most likely event. The film and the loss of memory seem to point in that direction. Someone had drugged him and then scooped him up and whisked him away for two months.

And Derek knew that Theo lied, knew before he saw Stiles and before they talked. Stiles had felt like it was his responsibility to make it up to his unofficial boyfriend – and now it appears that Derek just let him.

If nothing else, Derek has slowed the investigation down. Stiles is questioning people about Theo, when the man had nothing to do with the abduction. He’d been led up a merry path to nowhere.

Stiles is so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice the car behind him until it taps the back bumper. Stiles jerks forward and looks at his speedometer. He’s going 70 on the highway, and this idiot is ramming him. Stiles speeds up, but that doesn’t help at all. The other car speeds up as well and again taps his bumper. The jeep lurches forward, and Stiles thinks he hears the gears grind. That’s not a good thing.

He looks behind him. Stiles can see the car, a Prius, gaining on him again. Damn it, only in California could you get killed by a hybrid. He presses the gas pedal to the floor, but the reality is that the jeep is not made for speed. It’s made for off-road driving.

Stiles tries to stay on the road for a bit longer, wanting to get a look at the driver of the Prius, but nothing doing. Either there is some sort of tinting on the windows or the windshield has been modified. He can’t get a good look at the driver, not even to tell if it’s a man or a woman.

Stiles watches the passing grass on the sides of the road. He looks for a place that doesn’t include a steep drop-off and spins the wheel hard to the left. He feels the jarring bump as he hits the grass, but the Prius is already 50 yards in front of him. It slows but then keeps going. No way that a car could handle this terrain. Stiles pulls off to the shoulder of the highway going the opposite direction and takes a deep breath. He can feel the start of a panic attack. He’s been lied to and chased in the last hour. Who could blame him for some anxiety after all that?

He looks up to see a familiar car in his rear view mirror. A Camaro has pulled up behind him. Stiles grabs a tire iron from the backseat, just in case, and waits to be approached.

He sees Derek get out of the car and isn’t sure he’s ready for this talk. Derek who knew and didn’t say anything. Derek who somehow managed to be at the scene of an attack on Stiles. Derek who has some explaining to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can check out my works at http://www.jeffreymarks.com
> 
> I hope to have another chapter out this week, since I'm on fall break YAY


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Derek have it out...

 

“What are you doing here?” Stiles asks suspiciously. He feels bad that he can’t trust Derek at this point, but the car incident, the information from Parrish and the whole kidnapping thing have taken a toll on him.

“I saw the Jeep swerve off the road. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Derek looks sincere, but Stiles thought he had been sincerely worried about Theo and him as well.

“I went off road because a Prius was rear-ending me.”

Stiles can see Derek try to suppress a smile. “A Prius tried to run you off the road?”

Stiles jumps out of the car and walks around to the rear bumper. Clear fresh dents are visible on the bumper. “Right here. Look!”

Derek follows Stiles to the rear of the car. “Stiles, there are a good 15 dents in this bumper. Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to drive?”

“Reverse is not my best direction,” Stiles admits, “but there are new marks here. They’re not 10 years old.”

“But they could have been made any time. Did you get a look at the driver or the license plate?”

Stiles snorts. “How can I see the license plate when it’s up against my bumper? And the windows were tinted.”

Derek looks back at the Camaro. “That’s a car that should have tinted windows. A Prius should not. That’s all you’ve got?”

Stiles takes a deep breath to calm himself, but it doesn’t help. “No, Derek, I have the driver trussed up on the median with a full confession to everything.” In recent years, he’s tried to tone down the sarcasm, but his already overstressed nerves are not having any more.

Derek seems a bit surprised by the response. His eyes widen for a second, and then he takes a step back.

“Go ahead. You want to walk away,” Stiles says. “You damn-well knew that I wasn’t kidnapped by Theo – and that I didn’t sleep with him either. Why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this?”

Derek stares at him. “This is an open investigation, and that was police information. Where did you get it?”

“Jordan told me,” Stiles says, deliberately using the sheriff’s first name. “Someone around here trusts me.”

Derek looks like he’s been shot. “You think I don’t trust you? That’s what this is about?”

“Yeah, you’re keeping information from me. I’m running around like an idiot, trying to prove that Theo did this, and all along everyone else knows that Theo has an alibi. Do you know how stupid I feel right now?”

“I kept this back because it’s a key piece of information in a kidnapping case – your kidnapping case. I’d do it again if I thought that it would lead to you being out of danger. If you want to call that trust, then go ahead, but I’d do it again to keep you out of harm’s way. You don’t know when to stop –”

Derek doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Stiles is on him at once. He crushes his mouth against Derek’s mouth, and his tongue slides quickly between the other man’s lips. Stiles feels Derek’s strong arms pull him closer as they clench. This is the homecoming he’d wanted – the one he’d needed. It’s a shame that they’d had to argue like this to achieve that end.

 

Sometime later, they’re sitting in the Camaro, waiting for a tow truck. Stiles’ attempts to get the Jeep out of the median have met with little success. “So what now?” Derek asks. “What stupid stunt are you going to try to pull to get one of your famous ideas?”

“Well since you’re sharing police information – what ever happened with the DVDs? Was there any trace evidence on them?”

Derek shakes his head. “I don’t think I’m betraying anything to tell you that we didn’t get any prints or DNA from the cases or the DVDs. The DVDs are cheap. You could buy them at any Walmart or Target in America. They were modified using desktop technology, most likely Audacity, but the techs aren’t willing to swear that in court.”

“So nothing.” Stiles ponders for a few minutes, leaving his head cradled in the crook of Derek’s arm. “We don’t have a lot to go on.”

“No, that’s why I guard everything I get.” Derek bites his lip, looking uncertain for a minute.

“Give. I know that look. You know something else, don’t you?”

Derek shakes his head, but Stiles is unconvinced. “Derek,” he whines. “Tell me.”

“Well it’s not entirely related, but that club you were at has some connections to the illegal drug trade and maybe some other nasty things. I’m just not sure how one would relate to the other?”

Stiles gives him a grin. “There’s one way for us to find out. I was thinking that we should recreate the night I disappeared at the club. Get everyone there and see what we can learn.”

“Is this going to be one of those mystery novel moments where you unmask the kidnappers and solve the crime?” Derek asks skeptically. “I’m not up for one of those.”

“Nope,” Stiles says, popping the “p.” “But unless you have a better idea, then that’s what we’ll have to try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up on the first big reveal of the story --but more to come!
> 
> Check me out at http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles tries to re-enact his disappearance with some unexpected results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I've been down and out with a sinus infection, bronchitis and then pleurisy. Ugh. I'm back now, and hopefully I'll be writing more over Christmas break. 
> 
> As always you can find out more about me at http://www.jeffreymarks.com

Stiles spends the rest of the afternoon, trying to find out where he could have started his journey. A quick Google suggests that the Beacon Hills River travels about a mile an hour, but given that it has so many low spots and sandbars, it’s conceivable that he could have been stuck at any point along his travels for an undetermined period of time.

Of course, he knows that he came from upstream, so he begins to look at cabins and small resorts in wooded areas more than 15 miles upstream from the point where he was found. Stiles finds two towns that seemed to fit the bill: Santa Mira and Hill Valley.

Stiles knows that he’ll be asking Derek to take a day trip to find out if either of them felt familiar. He didn’t have much to go on, just a hope that something will ring a bell.

Having done that, he tries to clean up. He hasn’t had time to get a haircut or even a proper shave since he’s been out of the hospital. He looks at his phone and realizes that he has to get ready – or at least attempt it – before Derek comes to pick him up. Fortunately, all of his things are still here, so Stiles has no trouble in taking a shower or shaving. His hair is longer than he’s used to, so it takes a while for him to figure out a style that suits him.

He’s looking at himself in the mirror when the doorbell rings. Derek is standing there when he opens the door. “Hey, good looking,” Stiles says and moves in for a kiss. They brush lips, but Stiles can see that Derek is back to being distant again. He chooses to ignore it for the moment. “I’m almost ready.”

Derek nods and steps into the room. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asks, looking around as though he hadn’t just been at Stiles’ apartment a few hours ago.

Stiles raises his eyebrows. “Not really, but I want to see for myself what happened. I don’t think I’ll be able to remember it on my own. I want something to jumpstart my memory.”

Derek sighs. “If you really took those pills, then it’s more likely that you’ll never remember.”

“All the more reason to go then,” Stiles declares. He grabs a coat and they’re out the door.

 

Sinema is just where Stiles left it, and the club is hopping by the time they arrive, mainly because Stiles has invited a few people to the club to help him remember what happened. He sees Liam, Mason, Brett, Theo and Parrish all standing around the same table when they arrive. He and Derek approach the table, and Parrish and Theo deliberately leave to go out on the dance floor. It would have seemed natural except for the fact that Parrish practically stared him down as he entered with Derek.

Derek goes to get them drinks. He returns with water for Stiles.

“Hey, that definitely wasn’t what I was drinking that night,” he exclaims with indignation.

Derek huffs. “It’s what you’re getting tonight. You should really be home in bed, not out partying.”

Stiles smiles at Derek, not wanting to upset him on their first real day together in two months. “I’m just trying to make it as real as possible,” he protests.

“Pretend it’s alcohol. This is what you’re getting.” Considering that Stiles has had no income in two months and the bills have kept coming, he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t need a $10 drink at the moment.

Brett and Mason join the other couple on the dance floor. Stiles is still standing there with Liam.

“What did you do now?” Derek asks.

Stiles shrugs. “What next Liam?”

Liam takes a deep breath. “Do I have to do this? I feel weird reliving that night.”

“Yeah, it’s for me. Come on. What happened next?”

Liam points to the bar. “That night, I went to bar and got a drink. When I got back, you were gone.”

“Then go!” Stiles says, waving his arms as if to move him away.

“The bartender isn’t even there. What good is it?”

“Humor me,” Stiles says with a smile. “That bartender will be back in a moment, and you can have that drink.”

Liam gets up, resigned to the request and moves off. Derek raises an eyebrow as if to question the move.

Stiles gives him a grin. “Since I don’t know what happened that night, I’m just going to hit the restroom real quick. Maybe something will cause me to remember something.” He saunters off in the direction of the bathrooms, though he was uncertain what he thought would happen. Derek was right – this was going to be a big bust. They’d be no further than they were.

Stiles opens the door to the restroom and steps inside. He doesn’t see what hits him on the head.

 

 

When he awakes, he knows he’s been out, but he also knows that it hasn’t been two months or even two hours. The bartender, who he thinks is named Donovan, is lying on the floor, very obviously dead with his throat cut.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles wakes up to a dead body and a suspicious sheriff.

 

Stiles shakes his head and curses. He should have known. Of course, he’d practically tempted fate by reenacting the crime. He painted a huge bullseye on his back and asked to be hit. And hit he was.

The blood is still very fresh on the floor. Stiles does his best to avoid it, as he steps outside of the bathroom and looks for Derek. He doesn’t see him at first, and for a horrible moment, Stiles wonders if Derek was the one who did this. Could he kill someone – if that someone had done something to someone Derek cared about? He’d gone to great lengths to solve his mother’s murder and avenge her death. Would he kill someone who had mess with his boyfriend?

Stiles puts a hand to his forehead. The headache he’d had when he first woke up is back again, albeit from a different source. Now, Stiles can actually put his hand on the back of his head and feel the spot where he’s been struck. There’s a lump. Stiles is surprised to see a bit of blood on his hand when he pulls it away. He was hit hard.

He looks around again for Derek, who sees Stiles and heads in this direction. “Where have you been?” Derek asks, obviously concerned. “Some of the people here want to go home, and they’ve been waiting on you.”

Stiles takes two steps forward and feels his legs give out from under him.

 

 

When he awakens again, Stiles feels a little better. The headache has subsided, and he feels more like himself. However, one look at Derek’s face tells Stiles that he’s found the body.

“What the hell happened in there?” Derek whispers to him.

Stiles shrugs. He feels unbelievably alone and powerless at the moment. It’s as if someone else has control of his life, and Stiles merely gets to play a part written by someone else. It’s not fair, and it frustrates Stiles no end.

“I got hit on the head. When I woke up, that guy was dead on the floor next to me.” Stiles shivered a little to think of the body that had rested so close to where he had fallen. Stiles started to wonder what would have happened to him if he’d woken up earlier. Would he have ended up like the bartender? Or was something worse waiting for him in the future?

Derek ran his fingers over the lump on the back of Stiles’ head. He pulls it away, and Stiles can see a bit of blood on the ends of Derek’s fingers. In the next moment, Derek takes one of Stiles’ arms and moves it behind his head. Stiles first thinks that it’s a technique to improve his blood flow and headache, but then he realizes that Derek is testing to see if he’s flexible enough to hit himself on the back of the head in that location. Despite his ability to flail, Stiles isn’t that flexible.

“Really? You think I did this.”

Derek shakes his head. “No, but the rest of the police force will think so. We’re in Beacon Hills, so I have limited authority. This will be Parrish’s case.”

Stiles nods, realizing that they are now at the whims of a police force that doesn’t include his father anymore. That’s not a great feeling, especially given that Parrish covered for Theo after the first crime.

As if on cue, Parrish approaches the two of them. “What happened here?” he asks, before he leans down to be on Stiles’ level.

Stiles explains the story again; Parrish takes a few notes and nods as Stiles speaks. He seems more friendly and in control tonight than he was at the Stilinski home before. He has to wonder where Theo was at the time of the crime.

“So what do you know about this guy, Donovan?” Parrish asks.

Stiles shakes his head. “Nothing, he’s a bartender here. Other than that, nothing.”

“And if I asked you to take a drug test, what would you say?” Parrish asks. Stiles realizes that Parrish has been staring into his eyes. It’s not romantic in the least. The sheriff has been checking out his pupils for drug use.

“I’m fine with it. I mean, I may have something left in my system from the disappearance but you could easily compare the new test to the one from the hospital – I’ll be glad to sign for you to get a copy of it.”

“Okay, a technician’s here.” Parrish hands him a cup. “Go for it.”

Stiles eyes the cup, and honestly can’t believe that this man, who he’d slept with more than once, was honestly accusing him of being a drug addict. He goes into the women’s bathroom, since the men’s is occupado with crime scene techs. He finishes and goes back out with the specimen. Stiles hands it over without a word.

Parrish looks at the sample and then Stiles. “Thanks. Donovan is a known drug dealer here. Mostly meth, but some GHB and a few other things. We just want to exclude a drug deal gone bad from the likely motives.”

Stiles groans. “You do realize that a man was killed at the time that I was trying to find out what happened to me that night. They have to be related. This has to be a result of my disappearance.”

Parrish puts an arm on Stiles’ shoulder. He resents Parrish’s easy touch after just accusing him of shooting up and killing a dealer. “Stiles, that’s our working theory, but Beacon Hills is interested in the murder. We can’t know for sure where the disappearance started, where you were held for months, and where you were let go -- so the jurisdiction is more questionable.”

Stiles fights back the sarcasm, which is ready and waiting. Derek’s eyeing him like he wants to say something – if only Parrish would leave. “Fine, whatever. Do what you have to do.”

Parrish leaves without a word.

Derek comes closer to Stiles. “I never thought I’d be saying this, but if the police have some questions about jurisdiction, then we have some leeway. Don’t blow it by trying to get involved here.”

Stiles grins. “I did some research today, and I have some ideas on where I might have been kept. Want to check them out?”

Derek looked at his watch. “It’s too late to go tonight, but first thing in the morning.”

Stiles pulls Derek in for a kiss. “I can think of a few things to do until then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting back into the swing of things after being sick for what seemed like forever. 
> 
> As always, check me out at http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Derek go looking for a cabin.

 

The next morning, Stiles turns over and grins to see Derek resting next to him. He keeps thinking that it might be a dream, but it’s not. He and Derek are an item again.

Stiles sneaks out of bed and runs to the corner to get coffee and a bite to eat. There’s coffee at his apartment, but frankly Stiles is a bit nervous about eating anything from his place, given that he knows that someone was there. Nothing to say that someone couldn’t have tampered with the food when he (or she to be fair) dropped off the DVDs.

Stiles still doesn’t understand the purpose of the DVDs. They firm up his story, a rather flimsy excuse that is mostly unsubstantiated – except for the photos and footage they’ve left for him to find. These people would have a lot more leeway if Stiles’ story was doubted.

He returns to find Derek standing at the sink, looking for food. He holds up the bag and smiles. “Thought you could use some nourishment after last night.”

Derek steps in close and kisses Stiles. The kiss sends chills down his spine, and his body reacts as it had last night. He wants this man again. He moans softly into Derek’s mouth, but the action causes Derek to step away.

“Much as I’d love to, we have to get going. It’s going to be a long day if we want to find this place.”

Stiles agrees and takes ten minutes to get ready. Derek has already polished off his coffee and two bagels. Apparently, he isn’t the only hungry one this morning.

They decide to take Derek’s Camaro today. That leaves Stiles free to survey the landscape and see if anything looks familiar. Derek decides on a route and picks Hill Valley first. Stiles probably would have gone to Santa Mira, because it seems more promising, but Derek makes a case that it’s an easier trip to start in the other location.

It takes them about an hour to get to Hill Valley. Stiles looks around at the scenery, but doesn’t see anything that clicks with his memory. Derek does a slow drive around town, and they opt to head past a cluster of rented summer homes, mainly cabins. Stiles can see at once that none of them meet the criteria. The outsides of the cabins don’t match what he remembers, and the distance to Beacon Hills River is too far. Someone would have seen a man being hauled into a boat at this juncture. Derek makes them get out and walk around, just to be sure, but the action only solidifies the certainty in Stiles. This wasn’t it.

Derek gets back into the car, but Stiles is slower to do so. He had been so sure that he could find the location where he’d been held. Yet the first chance is so far off the mark. He has a bad feeling that they will go home emptyhanded.

The trip to Santa Mira is longer. Even though the trip is only 15 minutes by river, the roads out in this area are less traveled and more secluded. The drive takes them nearly an hour. Derek doesn’t say much on the way, and Stiles wonders if he is considering the option that Stiles made this whole thing up himself. He seems more distant now that they’re looking for real proof that he was taken.

Stiles has hoped that the murder of Donovan would bridge the distance between them. It has in some ways. The need for each other has grown, and they’re far more intimate physically than they had been. However, Derek continues to lapse into long silences, where Stiles has to wonder what is going through his head.

He leans his head against the window and watches the scenery go by. He gets bored with that in a few minutes and starts fiddling with the radio. Derek shoots him a look that definitely means to stop, and he does. Stiles looks up from the radio and gasps. He recognizes this road. “Derek, pull over.”

Derek maneuvers the car easily to the berm of the road. Stiles gets out and runs about 50 yards down the pavement. He walks back slowly. “This is it. This is where I was taken. We’re on the right track.”

Derek nods, and Stiles gets back in the car. Stiles starts giving Derek directions as he can. They’re a bit vague at times, but he gets them to a cluster of three cabins. Derek pulls up to the paved pathway that leads to the first one, and pulls out his gun. He motions for Stiles to stay in the car and hide. Stiles starts to argue, but Derek is right. If the men are still here and armed, then Derek is in a much better place to fight them than he is.

Stiles hears a tap on the window in a minute, and he looks up. Derek is motioning for Stiles to join him.

“No one’s here, but someone has been. It looks a lot like the background of those photos I saw.” Derek leads the way to the first cabin.

From the moment he opens the door, Stiles knows this is the place where he stayed. Though he can’t articulate specific things about the cabin, he can go to the bathroom without being told where it is, and he instinctively knows which bedroom he stayed in during the ordeal.

The cabin is comfortable enough. It has two bedrooms, one on either side of a short hallway. The bathroom is on the same side of the hall as Stiles’ bedroom. Stiles looks at the modern kitchen and tests himself by finding the flour and coffee on the first try. He goes back out to the living room, where Derek is lighting a fire. “It’s getting colder, and I want to stay warm enough to give this place a thorough investigation. I already looked through the grate, and nothing’s been burned.”

Stiles nods. He’s more interested in the books that line the wall above and beside the fireplace. He stops when he comes across a familiar sight. All of Stiles’ books in the Howl series are back to back at eye level. Stiles takes down the first book and flips through it. Nothing out of the ordinary. He repeats the process until he gets to the last book, the one he finished just before meeting Derek. There are photos in the book. Stiles pulls them out, and he immediately recognizes them. These images are from a photo album that Stiles has at home. He wonders if these are the originals or duplicates.

Either way, it’s another indication of this kidnapper messing with his mind. Stiles has bene given another reminder that he is approaching this situation blindfolded. The kidnapper is so unafraid that he leaves clues to let Stiles know he’s getting warmer.

Derek walks over and takes the pictures. One is of Stiles as a child, and he really wishes that Derek wouldn’t spend so much time staring at it. A flicker of a smile crosses the other man’s lips, and Stiles is not amused. The next one is of a teenaged Stiles all arms and legs, shirtless and showing entirely too much white skin. He tries to determine from Derek’s expression what he’s thinking, but he can’t.

Derek skims through several more shots of Stiles, but stops at the last one. It’s not a reprint or one from Stiles’ home. It was taken here. It’s not the subtle image he’d seen of Stiles sitting by the fire. In this one Stiles has been stripped to the waist and posed to make it look like he’s been stabbed. There’s a mark on his left side, one that is not there now. There’s presumably catsup around the faux wound, and a knife lying near his body. Stiles suddenly feels incredibly vulnerable. If they could pose him for such a photo, then they could have done anything to do him – including kill him. He feels naked and raw as he feels the walls pushing in on him, and Stiles takes off running, out of the cabin and into the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while. Migraines are kicking my butt. 
> 
> You can always check out what I'm doing at http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles freaks out about the photos, but finds a few clues before getting a fright.

 

Stiles stops after about five minutes of a dead sprint. He catches his breath in big gasps, realizing that he apparently hasn’t exercised much in the past few months. He’s sure that’s because he was trapped and couldn’t escape.

The images come to his mind again. The fake blood, the knife, being stripped to the waist. What did these people want with him? Why were they throwing all these photos and videos at him? It’s almost like they’re taunting him, wanting him to panic or worse just shut down.

He’d panicked alright. Stiles looks around, but nothing looks vaguely familiar. He’s lost in the wood in the middle of nowhere. He’s never been here before, except during his captivity, and he doesn’t remember anything from that. His phone is still at the cabin, and he has no way of getting himself back there.

His path hadn’t been straight or along any walkway, so he can’t trace his way back to where he was. He takes a deep breath again, and slumps against a tree. He’s lost without a foreseeable way home.

Stiles curses his behavior and his panic. Yet he couldn’t stand to see proof that he’d been manhandled by the kidnappers. He knows that it happened at some level. He’d been dumped in a boat and deposited on the Beacon Hill River. He’d been put into a car trunk when he’d been taken. Still to see his body used as a mannequin is just too creepy for him.

The sun is on its downhill slide to night when he finally gets himself together. He’s gone about 100 yards when he hears the sound of water running. It has to be the river. Stiles tries to remember the maps he’d studied when looking for this place. The river wasn’t far away from the cabins here. In fact, the river turns and runs almost next to the cabins at one point.

Stiles finds the river easily and begins to follow it north. He hadn’t been a Boy Scout, since he’d even known at an early age that he would not be welcome there. Yet he knows his directions and map-following from his dad and his research.

He’s not sure how long he’s been walking when he runs across a shabby pier. There’s barely room for a small boat or dinghy to be tied to it, and Stiles immediately wonders if this had been used to tie up his boat. He stands back from it, because the ground has hardened. He sees footprints along the path to the pier. They’re deep and man-sized. Stiles is betting it’s because they were carrying something heavy – like himself.

By the time he’s finished surveying the area, he’s pretty sure that this is the place. The footsteps to the pier are deep and defined. Coming back from the pier, they’re lighter and less defined. So something was dropped off the pier. He sees the skid marks from where a small boat was pulled up on shore as well. The boat looks like it might be the same size as the dinghy he was found in.

When he’s marked the place and made a few notes on the palm of his hand, he starts moving again. The sun is dropping quickly now, and Stiles can feel a bit of chill in the air. He moves faster now, especially after he hears the howl of possibly a wolf in the distance. Wolves are great in his book, but not in real life. He doesn’t want to meet one out here.

The sun is almost down when he spots the cabins in the distance. He hurries to a trot. The Jeep is still in front of the cabin, but he doesn’t hear anything inside the cabin as he opens the door. It feels empty or deserted. Maybe Derek has gone in search of him? The thought makes Stiles worry, because he doesn’t want people to continue to treat him like a victim, even though he felt that way earlier today.

He finds his phone on the kitchen table and picks it up to check messages. He slides the bar and sees that the photo app is opened. He does a quick skim through the photos and his breath catches.

The first photo is one where Derek is laid out in almost exactly the same photo that Stiles had been in. There’s a knife lying next to him, and Derek has been stripped to the waist. Stiles looks at the rock-hard abs and the muscled pecs and hates whoever has touched Derek. There’s a series of about five photos with Derek in different positions, all shirtless and all threatening with knives around him.

Stiles hurries from room to room, flipping on lights and scanning each room. Derek is not in any of the bedrooms and he’s not in the common areas either. Stiles tries the bathroom and nearly falls over Derek’s body on the tile floor.

He’s breathing and Stiles feels some of the tension leave his body. He turns on the bathroom faucet and splashes water on Derek’s face. Stiles doesn’t see any of the marks from the photos on Derek, so again this was all set up to freak out Stiles – why? What was in it for anyone to make Stiles lose it on a daily basis? Was there a solid motive behind this or was it just for kicks? He doesn’t know, but he plans on finding out.

Derek starts to come around and very obviously doesn’t know what’s been going on.

“I waited for you. I got a drink of water and that’s all I remember,” he says. Derek looks down at his shirtlessness and raises an eyebrow.

“I didn’t do that to you. Whoever is behind all of this did this to you, just like they did to me.”

He helps Derek to the sofa where Derek finds his shirt. He pulls it over his head, which forces Stiles to focus on how this happened. He sees the glass on the counter. He goes to the sink and turns on the water. He takes a very small sip and waits, but nothing happens. So it isn’t the water. Stiles looks at the glass, and notices some small streaks where perhaps the glass wasn’t cleaned thoroughly. But he wonders. Taking a towel, he puts the glass in a Ziploc and closes the seal.

“I think that whoever did this painted the glasses with something to make us sleep. So they knew we were looking into this, and they knew that we were likely to find the place where I was held. They’ve been waiting for this to happen, and they were probably in the area today after we got here.” Stiles feels a shiver run up his spine as he thinks about the kidnappers being so close to him.

Derek nods, but it’s obvious he’s still dopey. Stiles helps him off the couch and together they go to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting back into this here. 
> 
> Be sure to check me out at: http://www.jeffreymarks.com


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek makes some deductions.

 

Stiles wakes up the next morning, feeling more determined than he’s been in a while. He’s found the cabin. He’s learned that at least two people are involved, because only someone built like Derek could have moved Derek across the cabin to the bathroom and stripped him down. That’s not the work of a single person.

He stumbles out to the kitchen to make coffee. Stiles looks at the glasses in the cupboard and decides to fish the Styrofoam cups out of the trash instead. He’s taking no chances on another incident of being drugged. He fills the two cups and takes them back to the bedroom.

Derek has started to stir, and Stiles holds out a cup for him. He takes it gratefully and sips on the hot liquid. Stiles drinks some as well, just enjoying the morning silence. He’s not used to situations where he’s comfortable with inaction and no talking. Those two things are his specialty.

Able to bear it no more, he says, “I think I found where the dinghy was launched.” He goes on to describe the site with its multiple footprints and dry soil.

“You need to take me there,” Derek replies. Stiles notices that he doesn’t talk about what happened yesterday. Derek is much more reserved about his feelings here. Stiles had freaked and run away, while Derek behaves like this happens all the time. Of course, he’d only lost a few hours and Stiles had lost months. That makes a difference.

They dress after finishing the coffee. Stiles just pulls on a wrinkled t-shirt from his bag and the jeans from yesterday. Derek dresses slower, finding a shirt and pants in his bag. The clothes had been meticulously folded and look great coming out of the bag.

On their way to the dock, Derek doesn’t ask him about how he found this or where he’d gone yesterday when he’d run out of the cabin. Maybe he thinks that Stiles left to look for this on purpose. He appreciates the silence again, wondering what is going through Derek’s mind. Is he now more motivated to find these people, since he’s been stripped and posed?

They get to the dock, which seems smaller today than it had yesterday. Perhaps it’s because Derek is here with him. Derek motions for him to stay back, and the guy begins a routine that would have put Sherlock Holmes to shame. Stiles doesn’t mind physical evidence. It can be helpful to convict someone, but at the same time, he’s wary of it. Too many times, it’s used to convict the wrong person after the evidence is misinterpreted or spun to make a defendant look guilty.

Derek stands up and brushes off the knees of his jeans. Stiles smirks, thinking that he’d rather have him on his knees for better reasons.

“There were two people here,” Derek says, confirming Stiles’ thoughts from earlier. He points to a pair of sneaker treads. “This is the first guy. Plain gym shoes, so not an athlete or an athlete who left his good shoes home.”

Stiles is surprised to see this level of interpretation of physical evidence. Parrish would never have been able to think at this level, though he would get his knees dirty for any reason.

“And the other guy?” Stiles asks, even though he can now see the separate tread easily.

“Wearing boots. Probably the guy in charge, since he seems to be more prepared for the task at hand. You can see that his boots sink deeper in the ground, so likely he was either carrying you or the boat or both.”

“He?” Stiles asks, thinking that Derek has gone a little bit too far.

“Yeah, he. The boot size is at least an 11, maybe an 11.5. That indicates a man. The other shoe, the gym shoe, is smaller. It could be a smaller man’s shoe size or a larger woman’s shoe size.”

“So the leader is a guy with size 11 boots and is accompanied by either a smaller man or a larger woman.”

Derek thinks for a second. “Well, not larger as in big, but larger as in athletic. The pace of the shoes walking away from shows a longer stride, so the person is either running or just walking fast. The stride is purposeful and firm.”

“What about the leader? Anything else on him?”

Derek looks at the tracks again. “I would worry about coming up against this guy. From what I can tell, he carried you. There are no dead-weight tracks on the ground.”

Stiles resents being called “dead-weight,” but he nods. “Is that it?”

“It’s not a small thing. He’s strong. He’s in shape.” Derek grabs Stiles by the wrist. In a single motion, Derek has Stiles flung across his shoulders. Stiles has to admit that carrying his weight, even though it’s not as much as Derek’s heft would weigh, is a lot to ask. Stiles runs his hand down Derek’s chest and tries to distract the detective.

“Can you put me down?”

Derek pulled him off of his shoulders and set him back on the ground in a fluid motion. Stiles wondered again who could be doing this. Even getting closer to him made him more scary to the writer. What was he up against?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, long time in coming. 
> 
> No more Derek on TW, DoB getting hurt and Castle cancelled. I seem to be a jinx here. 
> 
> Anyway, after a hiatus, this is back. You can find out what I'm doing at http://www.jeffreymarks.com

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the great feedback on the first installment. So here's the first chapter of the next one, obviously taken from this season's start of Castle. Let me know what you think. 
> 
> As always you can learn more about me at: http://www.jeffreymarks.com


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